This scepter'd isle ... this precious stone set in the, er, Malin Sea

BRITAIN'S shores are now washed by new, internationally recognised waters: the Malin Sea, writes Geoffrey Lean.

The sea, which stretches over 300 miles from Northern Ireland through both sides of the Hebrides to south of the Faroes, has been officially named by the 15 countries that are members of the international treaty that looks after the North-east Atlantic and North Sea.

The naming of the sea - after Malin Head, the northernmost tip of Ireland - will no doubt cause the atlases to be re-drawn, but comes as a surprise to local people.

The name was chosen by the countries of the Ospar Convention ranging from Portugal to Finland and Iceland to Belgium (and including Switzerland because of its influence on the Rhine) which met last week. The Convention had been breaking up its area into regions for a study of the state of this part of the ocean for the Millennium and decided that the waters north of Ireland and west of Scotland out to the edge of the continental shelf deserved to be named for the first time.

The countries considered calling it the Iro-Scottish Sea or the Scotto- Irish Sea, but ran into trouble over which country's name should come first. A compromise - the Circum Hebridean Sea - was rejected as too cumbersome. Finally an official from the Northern Irish Department of Agriculture suggested the Malin Sea, and the name stuck.

The Convention - which last week widened its remit to cover the wildlife of the sea as well as pollution - is examining such problems as radioactive discharges, effects of gender-bending chemicals, the disposal of oil rigs, and the state of fisheries.

But the naming of the Malin Sea caused few ripples. The Scottish Nationalist Party said it was relaxed about Scottish waters being named after an Irish point. A spokesman for the Western Isles Council in Stornaway said: "This news to us, but I don't see the name catching on. I think we will go on talking about the Atlantic!"